May 31 (Bloomberg) -- Dai-ichi Life Insurance Co. is near
an agreement to buy a stake in PT Panin Financial Tbk’s life
insurance unit for about $350 million, said people with
knowledge of the matter.

The deal for a 40 percent stake in Panin Life may be signed
as early as next week, two of the people said, asking not to be
identified as the information is private.

Lured by the region’s growth potential, buyers including
Prudential Plc and Sumitomo Life Insurance Co. have snapped up
more than $6.6 billion of insurance assets in Southeast Asia
over the past two years, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Dai-ichi plans to spend about $3 billion on overseas purchases in
the next two years, managing executive officer Hideo Teramoto
said this month.

Yasufumi Maruyama, a spokesman for Dai-ichi Life, declined
to comment. Panin Financial Corporate Secretary Dony Sianipar
wasn’t immediately available when called at his office.

Japan’s saturated market is spurring insurers including
Dai-ichi to look overseas for new customers. The company said
this month that it expects profit to rise 14 percent this fiscal
year, compared with a 59 percent jump in the 12 months through
March.

Sumitomo Life and Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Co. made
final bids for a minority stake in closely held Thai Life
Insurance Pcl, Thailand’s second-largest life insurer, people
with knowledge of the matter said this week. Prudential, the
U.K.’s biggest insurer by market value, said in November that it
would buy the life insurance business of Thailand’s Thanachart
Bank Pcl for as much as 368 million pounds ($560 million).